Wednesday, January 2, 2013

Wishes for a Happy (or at Least Disaster-Free) New Year


 
Happy New Year!  I hope that all of you enjoyed the holidays.  Mine was lovely in spite of not receiving the World Peace I've been asking for since I was sixteen.  I mean, what the hell, Santa? 

Anyhoo, 2013 is off to a great start so far:  the kids are back at school, the house is quiet once again, and my sanity is mostly intact.  It feels good to have just the usual stuff to stress about rather than the dozens of additional worries that the holiday season ushers in. 

I always have such high hopes for each new year.  Each January 1st brings with it a feeling of bright and shiny optimism, bursting with potential.  Yeah, that old year really let us down (I'm talking to you, 2009, 2010, 2011, and 2012) but this one, THIS new year, is going to be when things finally turn around. 

So, before the alcohol wears off, er, I mean, before the disillusionment sets in, and while my cynicism is still sleeping, I'd like to throw a few of my wishes for 2013 out into the universe and see if they stick:

-  For starters, can this Great Recession/Depression/Whatever please end?  It's like an uninvited guest who keeps messing up the place and refusing to leave.  While the politicians remain beholden to  their own agendas, so many of us remain forgotten and continue to struggle.  Here in America, we shouldn't have to choose between paying the electric bill and buying food after working a full week.  We shouldn't be living one illness away from financial ruin or homelessness.  Something is fundamentally wrong with an economy that is content to allow the majority of its population to subsist as long as the stock market keeps humming along.   I pray that this is finally the year that people will matter more than politics or profits.

-  Speaking of politics, can Congress please just do its job without reducing every single item of legislation to a whiny-baby partisan fight?  If Moms ran the country, we'd know what to do to break the stalemate:  we'd count to three, and if the fighting continued, we'd take away their video games and send them all to the Naughty Chair.  The privilege of representing the American people should be reserved for those who will honor it and who will work for the good of the people - ALL of the people,  not just the wealthy, powerful, and influential ones. 

-  How about a year with no natural disasters?  Certainly, we've paid our dues in 2012 with wildfires, tornadoes, floods, and hurricanes.  We haven't even gotten all of those sorted out yet, so a boring year weather-wise would be much appreciated.  How lovely it would be to have a rainstorm just be a rainstorm and nothing more! 

-  Lastly, can we please at least move closer to that World Peace thing?  Maybe try diplomacy a bit more and violence a lot less?  Perhaps a good place to start would be by being kinder toward one another.  We gain nothing by magnifying our differences rather than embracing our similarities. We're all members of the same grand club known as the human race.  It would help to remember that we're all just doing the best that we can even if it doesn't always look that way. 

Wishing everyone a happy, healthy, peaceful, prosperous, and disaster-free 2013. 

No comments:

Post a Comment